


Returns

by morrezela



Series: The Fairy Tale 'Verse [10]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Fairy Tales, M/M, Magic, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morrezela/pseuds/morrezela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fairytale AU: For Jared, the journey back to the castle is far worse than the one that took him away from it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Returns

**Author's Note:**

> Reading Staircases, Portraits, Journeys, Hopes, Betrayals, Rescues, Homes, Memories and Duties first is advisable for the full impact of the story.

Few were the things that were more frustrating than moving a live tree. There was a reason that Jared’s chosen profession had been working with dead wood. Granted, those reasons mostly had nothing to do with the outright stubbornness of live wood, but Jared had been stuck in the wilderness for ages with no company save himself and some squirrels. He was allowed to mentally modify his past if he so chose.

When he had first awoken to life again, Jared had been confused and terrified and had processed a great deal more feelings about the matter than he liked to inspect on a daily basis. It was all very confusing.

After a period of contemplation, he had decided not to squander his renewed existence. He had purposed within himself that he would take the risks with his new life that he would not have dared to take with his old one.

As Jared had never been one to be reticent, there was only one large regret that he harbored in his heart. The enormity of his desire was still impressive. Magical resurrections aside, one did not just go and proposition one’s prince. It wasn’t done. Their friendship alone had pushed the boundaries of propriety, and Jared had no real proof that his tender affections were returned.

Glances were not kisses. Closeness and familiarity was not love and softness. Carpenters were most decidedly not members of the royal court. Jared had no idea what reborn tree people were, but it was a fair bet that the word ‘freak’ would be applied at some point.

There wasn’t much left for him to lose even if the chance of gaining something was also near to nil. So with nothing more than a vague plan of hunting down his crowned prince and placing a potentially undesired kiss upon those rose petal lips, Jared had begun a sojourn towards where he thought the nearest city to be.

He didn’t make it very far. The tugging at his insides started up within seconds and worsened as he kept moving forward. He had thought that the damage to the naked soles of his feet would be the worst thing about his travel. There had also been a passing worry about snapping twigs and bug bites to his groin, but the fierce burning sensation inside of him was most unpleasant.

Jared was no genius, but he was above average in intelligence and well educated for the position that he held in society. The distance that he put between himself and the damnable tree was obviously the source of his distress.

With great reluctance, he made his way back to the pool that the tree was currently floating above. Jared moped for a few days before he began to test the boundaries of how far he could move away from the tree before the pain became unbearable. He tested time limits and even a theory that he was just addicted to the tree like a smoker of geilgeil seed, but no matter how long he spent away from the tree he couldn’t extend the distance that he traveled away from it.

There was no great life awaiting him, not when he couldn’t remove himself from the disturbing tree that had played a part in causing great calamity in the world. The knowledge threw Jared into a despair that he had never before experienced. He wished for death to reclaim him, but it was not so kind.

Instead the weather decided that it would try out the new whipping boy by deluging him in torrents of water. The drops stung his exposed skin, and the winds abraded him, but he could do nothing about it. Jared had no weapons to use against an animal to gain its hide for clothing. Even if he did, he was no tanner that could cure it. Similarly he hadn’t his axe or saw to hew down a tree to create shelter. The only thing he could do was huddle into nature’s canopy of leaves and wish for his end, but it would not come.

His stomach still hungered, and he subsisted on fruits and nuts and roots. He could build a rudimentary fire from twigs and grasses and could provide some variety in how the vegetable matter was cooked, but there was little meat in his diet. Jared was no cat or dog that could catch prey with its jaws, and his attempts at building snares were laughable.

The threat of starvation was something perpetually looming about his head. But even though his diet lapsed, it seemed that his bond to the vile tree kept him from becoming ill from it. Limited as his consumption of food had become, Jared did not lose muscle mass nor did he become gaunt with his hunger. The state of his body defied logic, and there was only the tree to blame.

It was a most infuriating existence. Insanity hovered about the edges of Jared’s mind, pecking away at him, burrowing into his ever growing loneliness. Though his new life was borne out of magic, he was still a human in need of human contact. Or, at the very least, in need of purpose.

So vexed was he about his life that he didn’t realize at first that the tree had moved. He made a point of staying as far away from the infernal thing as possible. The day he trekked to the nearby stream in search of roots for his supper and found the tree hovering over a new pool of water was a shock. He knew that in theory the thing could move. It was a magical object that had survived being killed and had drug Jared through the expanse of the earth to reemerge in a foreign forest. Of course moving would not be out of its grasp.

But the potential for something to happen was different from that event actually occurring, and at first Jared didn’t know what to do. So he ran away. From what he could tell, the tree always needed to be over a pool of water, and the pool by the stream had only been created because of the overflow that the rains had brought. But the new location of the tree meant that Jared could explore new areas of the forest, and he meant to take the opportunity while he could.

The tree followed him again. And again. And again.

Eventually, Jared caught on to the pattern. If there was a big enough pool of water nearby, the tree would move itself closer to Jared. Jared’s leading theory was that his tie to the tree was a shared one, and it didn’t care for the distance that he put between them.

As queasy as that idea made him, it also gave him hope. If there was enough water, there was the possibility of movement. Where there was movement, there was the opportunity to go home - or the opportunity to get close to home. Jared wasn’t exactly particular.

Then again, Jared wasn’t exactly heading home either. It took a while, but after a bit of travel, he finally stumbled upon a familiar landmark. He was far, far away from any place that he had been before, but Jared had always had an affinity for maps. Knowing his location enabled him to pick a direction to travel. His heart chose to move towards the castle instead of his family’s homestead.

The going was slow and tedious. There were times that he would have to wait for days or even weeks for there to be enough water for the tree to follow after him. Drought and sun became his enemies, foes that he could not vanquish. The boughs of the tree that floated above the water became his haven of rest. Whatever else the tree had done to him, its leaves would move to shelter him from both hail and sun. It wasn’t exactly comfortable to rest his naked skin on the bark of the tree, but it was better than shivering or burning on the grass and pebbles of a forest floor.

Winter was the worst. Never before had Jared craved snow as much as he did when the temperature dropped. Clear, starry nights turned from things of beauty to torturous, endless hours of pain. The clouds that brought snow at least insulated some of the heat and kept it in the air.

The frozen wasteland around him halted his progress. Despite the water that seemed to be everywhere, the tree would not move to follow him. The magic in it didn’t recognize snow as a giant pool of water, and Jared would have cried if not for the fact that his tears would have frozen to his face. The coldness of the season kept him huddled close to the tree. It didn’t provide warmth, but it kept him from feeling like he was about to die from exposure.

With nothing else to do but worry about his manhood freezing off, Jared set about crafting himself some tools. They were rudimentary at best, nothing but stone rubbed against stone. But he managed to get a couple of knives fashioned. He would have tried for a spear as well, but the stone in the area was difficult to work with. Too much pressure and it would fracture into unusable pieces. Even the knives he was able to make were good for little more than skinning the peel of a fruit or giving himself a shave. They were useless for stabbing anything, too small and brittle to achieve a puncture.

After a season of eating left over nuts and twigs and bark, springtime was officially Jared’s favorite time of year. Not only did the fresh shoots of tender plant material greet his tongue with newly discovered love, the tree had a plethora of puddles to hover over. If Jared hadn’t been half starved by the winter, he would have made it farther than he did, but he still made good progress before the next summer’s sun began to make his progress intermittent.

It was nearing autumn by the time that Jared managed to reach the edge of the castle’s forest. The milestone made him both glad and frustrated. The royal family had great love for their woodlands. Even though he was setting foot on royal grounds, Jared still had a far piece to go before he reached any guard or woodsman. If memory served, Queen Jenhaia liked her forest natural. She wouldn’t have the workers out so far altering something that nature provided for no fee.

There was the possibility of the guards coming by, but it was unlikely. The patrols on the far edge of the property were intermittent by design. It was a waste of resources to have strong patrols so near the border of the lands. And the almost random pattern of the patrols that did occur was meant to lull any squatters or interlopers into a false sense of security. The regularly patrolled areas of the grounds were much closer to the castle.

Hoping for the fall rains to be heavy, Jared spent his waiting time tidying himself up as well as he could given his lack of accessories. His stone knives had dulled and whittled away to almost nothing, but he did his best to shave every few days to keep the look of wildness away from his face.

He could do nothing with his hair except for comb it out with his fingers and clean it. Any attempt at cutting it was sure to end in making it look worse, and he could not afford to sacrifice his shaving implements on a botched trim – not when he was already at a disadvantage with his naked state. There was little he could use for clothing, and skulking behind bushes would be seen as suspicious. So would a dead man appearing nude on royal grounds, but at least Jared might be spared an arrow to the heart if he was forthright about it.

Prepared as he was to wait until the next rain, Jared was shocked when he came face to veldeer face with Jensen. Jared had heard the hoof beats coming, but there was enough wildlife around that he hadn’t paid them any attention. But the form before him was clearly Jensen’s. The shiny white coat dappled with its regular deer brown spots couldn’t belong to any other. Jared had only seen Jensen in his veldeer form once when they were both still children, but it was a sight that he would never forget. Or forget again. Jared did give himself an allowance for the time of the curse.

They stared at each other for a moment, but not for long. Despite the way that Jared’s heart was trying to lodge itself up in his throat, he wasn’t going to delay their reunion any longer than was necessary. He wasn’t sure if his intent was to just touch or to embrace his prince as he moved forward. He assumed that he would just let fate decide that.

Fate decided that Jensen should run away from him instead. Jared saw the decision in Jensen’s eyes before the prince’s feet ever turned. There was suspicion and disbelief and fear in them, like Jensen was seeing things. When Jared opened his mouth to reassure his prince, no sound came out of it. He tried and tried again, but there was nothing. No faint croaking of a voice unused or clacking of a throat too dry.

Jensen spun around and raced away while Jared’s mind stubbornly refused to move on from the fact that he couldn’t speak. Even though he had been on his own for ages, he was certain that he had at least bellowed at the infernal tree that had bound itself to him. He recalled yelling words at it, cursing, crying and spitting all manner of undignified pleadings at it.

But… that had been so long ago now. And who was he to say that his mind hadn’t played tricks on him? Memories of crying out in pain when the tender sole of his foot stepped on a sharp rock could easily be fabricated by his own imagination. It wasn’t as if there had been another person around who could have verified his story.

Aside from that, who knew what kind of power the magical tree had over him? It kept him from straying too far away from it, but it also had kept him from freezing to death. Despite the weather and all of the travelling he had done, his feet were not calloused nor was any of his other skin cracked from constant exposure. It was something that he had put out of his mind for his journey, resolute that he would think about it only when he returned to civilization.

Well, he still hadn’t returned to civilization and the kingdom’s foremost sorcerer had just bounced away from him on flying deer feet. As far as Jared was concerned, he could still put off pondering the inevitable. There were more important things to think about.

Things like how he was going to torture Jensen for the rest of his life for running away from him. Eternal gifting of candy would be a good start. That and many kisses. It was true that Jared was not assured of Jensen’s affections, but Jared had been told by many a maiden that he was an accomplished kisser. He could sway Jensen’s affections with his romance. It wasn’t like he could use words to enchant the prince.

Of course, there would be the matter of the court’s approval. A carpenter brought back to life by a tree was certain to cause scandal if chosen for the royal consort. But Jared had just walked naked through forests and snowstorms and lightning storms and hail storms and any other sort of storm that came through the regions that the kingdom covered. That had to count for something.

If nothing else, Jared would have to appeal to the fact that his death had saved the land from a curse. Heroes were almost always knighted, and the right sort of knights were allowed to marry princesses. The court could make an exception for the prince. Children might be an issue, but there had to be a succession line in place somewhere.

Mind made up about his course of action once he convinced Jensen and the rest of the land, that he was real, Jared turned back to the problem of his voice. Every day he tried to speak, and every day nothing came out of his mouth. He tried singing and shouting, whispering and crying. He even tried croaking like a frog, which ended with him wheezing with voiceless laughter at his own absurdity.

No matter what he tried, nothing came. It was not the worst thing to have ever happen to him, but being a mute was not a burden that Jared relished. He had always been one to communicate and babble. The lack of speech was almost worse than the solitude that he had experienced during his journey to the castle. Even more sinister than that were the taunting remembrances of being able to speak while in the forest.

Questioning his own sanity was something that Jared had never thought he would have to do.

The only thing that kept him from falling into despair were the intermittent showers that would crop up and allow him to creep ever closer to the castle. Several times Jared had to retreat back to his starting point because the pool that the tree rested in would dry up and the magical flora would go back towards the last stable source of water. It was a sad thing that such a tease of hope was what kept him going.

The fall rains were not plentiful as he had hoped they would be. The days grew colder without enough moisture to gain any ground. The chill of winter began had crept in long before there was enough of a deluge to enable Jared to reach the manicured grounds of the castle, but the day that those rains came, Jared was ready.

Ice was forming on the blades of grass as he ran, but Jared paid it no mind. He slipped and slid and even twisted his knee as he barreled through the gardens towards the ponds that were kept in the center of them. The tree would keep open any water that it rested over, and pools didn’t freeze nearly as fast as earth did, but Jared wasn’t about to take any chances.

He heard the guards shout at him as he sprinted past, but he paid them no heed. His lungs had long since passed the stage of burning and gone into outright pain. His legs felt like they were made of taffy, and he was certain he tasted blood on the back of his tongue from all the exertion. An arrow to his back was the last of his worries.

Jared plunged straight into the water and waded out to the middle of the queen’s favorite lily pond. In the gloom of the storm and the setting sun, he could just make out the tree crashing after him, its unbound roots occasionally striking over objects in its path.

If Jared’s presence on the grounds had raised alarm, the giant tree floating after him was causing absolute chaos. There were warning bells being rung and garrisons being awoken and torches being lit. Jared had never heard so many people yelling Jensen’s name at once. Apparently they hadn’t replaced the castle sorcerer position if they were calling for the prince to come deal with the mystical tree problem in the gardens, but that suited Jared just fine.

When the tree settled on top of the water behind him, Jared could make out several arrows sticking into its trunk. There were a few gashes on its roots where he assumed that some of the guards had attempted to hack at it with swords and maybe even an axe or two. It was inappropriate to feel a surge of pride at how much better he had done at attacking the tree as a mere carpenter, but Jared didn’t bother squelching the impulse. He was naked in the queen’s garden. The guards weren’t. He needed something to feel superior about.

The glow of the torches grew brighter as an entire squad of soldiers approached. Their lights hissed and sputtered as the wind and rain came down on the open flames, but the soldiers kept advancing. They called out for Jared to announce himself. Mouth still as mute as ever, Jared still tried to respond. His throat bobbed with the force of trying to speak, but all his efforts only caused his lungs to burn harder from their effort.

“Enough,” Jensen’s voice cracked out over the increasingly demanding voice of his general’s. “I don’t think the tree has a voice to answer you with.”

“My Lord,” the man said, “there is a man here as well. An intruder who is naked.”

“A naked intruder?” Jensen sounded almost amused, but Jared could still hear the stress and apprehension in his voice. “Well I think between a naked man and a tree that could cause the whole world to shift, the tree is more of a concern. Don’t you?”

“Yes, Sire. But what if the naked man is a sorcerer?” the general argued.

“Then he is a very poor one. Most of us can afford robes,” Jensen answered with a light tone that was clearly faked. Jared knew the tilt of voice that Jensen took when he was being misleading. This discussion was a show for the ‘mystery intruder.’ It was meant to mislead the interloper.

Jared rolled his eyes to the heavens and obnoxiously slapped his hands down on the cold surface of the water to draw the guard’s attention to his position. The action would make him a target, but hopefully they would rather interrogate him than kill him on sight.

Jensen’s call for the guards to halt did no good. They were drawn to the sound and soon enough Jared was surrounded by heavily armored men who had all manner of sharp objects pointed at him. It would have been intimidating except for the fact that he knew over half of them. He hadn’t been the most skilled craftsman in the castle, and had spent more than his fair share of time repairing the bunkhouse where the soldiers kept their quarters. The shock on their faces was most satisfying.

Scowling at Jensen’s pale face was even more fulfilling. That would teach the smarmy not-bastard to leave the apparition of his dear friend in the woods and not even come back to investigate it.

“Jared?” Jensen’s voice cracked on his name.

“Sire! No!” the general shouted as he grabbed Jensen’s arm and pulled him away from the water. “It is a trick! A magical apparition sent to seduce you to your watery grave!”

Jared snorted silently. Never in his life had he thought he would be accused of being a water nymph.

“I don’t think…”

“He was naked, Sire.”

Jensen grunted. “He was naked and running from a magical tree that was following him. That isn’t the classical description of a water sprite.”

A smile graced Jared’s lips at Jensen’s certainty. There was a reason that the man would someday be king. Level heads were needed to rule kingdoms. He could give Jensen that much so long as he still received his candy and extortion kisses.

“Jared is dead. You saw him lose his life yourself,” the general changed tactics. His voice softened into something akin to sympathy, and Jared dearly wanted to strangle him.

“I did,” Jensen agreed. “But I have seen many things that should never have been thanks to a tree very like that one over there. I think it prudent to gather all of the facts before taking action. Don’t you?”

“I respectfully disagree. That tree holds too much power in it. Best to destroy it and any who it hold it in their power,” the general argued.

“And what if it is the other way around? What if it is the tree that holds the man in its power?” Jensen asked

“It doesn’t,” the general spoke with such absolute conviction that Jared would have believed him had he been speaking of another. “That form is clearly chosen because of your weakness for it. Your mourning was quiet, but not quiet enough.”

That, if it was true and not just chambermaid gossip, was a favorable sign towards receiving kisses and candies for more than just extortion purposes. It made Jared’s heart a little lighter as it pounded away in his chest.

“Call for Baron Morgan,” Jensen’s terse command cracked out in the air.

“Prince Jensen?” the general sputtered.

“You doubt my judgment on the matter, and your argument is convincing enough. You will call Baron Morgan and bring him here in all haste. His powers are not as great as mine, but they will suffice.”

Another wait wasn’t what Jared craved, but Baron Morgan was a capable enough sorcerer. Jared hadn’t forgotten drowning in a dry room. The man should at least be able to tell that Jared wasn’t some deception.

“In the meantime,” Jensen continued, “get him out of that water.”

“I don’t think…”

“No, you don’t,” Jensen interrupted sternly. “You may doubt my absolute judgment on the matter, but I can assure you that man is no nymph. Whatever he is, he is naked and swimming in freezing water. We treat our prisoners in our dungeons better than that. So far the only crime committed is trespassing on the royal grounds. If you do not wish me to invoke my right of royal pardon right this instant, you will fish him out of there and clothe him.”

“It will take a while for the dungeon master to get here with the…”

“Do not finish that sentence if you wish to remain in your post,” Jensen threatened. “Did I not just make it very clear that I am ready to pardon him? Do you think that I want him thrown in a cell somewhere? I have many soldiers who would like your position. And I have many more soldiers who are willing to guard that man in a very comfortable room off the kitchens. Clothe him, feed him, guard him. Those are your orders.”

“Yes, Sire,” the general agreed, reluctance clear.

“Good,” Jensen said as he cast one final glance in Jared’s direction. His eyes locked with Jared’s for a brief moment, but the wind guttered the torches too much for Jared to make out anything from the gaze. “I trust that you do not need to be told to put a double guard around the tree?”

“No, Sire,” the general clipped out.

Jared could see the set of the soldiers’ shoulders droop a bit at the proclamation. He didn’t doubt that they were all hoping to be put on duty guarding him rather than the damned tree.

“Well, you have your orders. I expect them to be carried out expediently. Your messenger to Lord Baron’s manner may have any horse in the stables that he wishes. And General? I think it is clear what I will do to you if our guest falls mysteriously ill before the baron arrives.”

“Like a crystal goblet, Sire.”

“Goodnight then,” Jensen said as he turned on his heel and walked away.

From the look that the general leveled at Jared as he climbed from the pool, Jared wondered if the crystal goblet the general had mentioned was filled with blood.


End file.
